“I go in and figure out where she has the bow. This won’t be like the Society—I have all of my powers.” Jo tapped her chest. “This isn’t like when the box was opened and my magic was just set free. It’sin menow; I have it here. She’s not going to take it by force or wrench it from the ether. If she wants us to join, it still has to be on my terms.”
“But even if she can’t force you to join her. . .” Wayne’s words trailed off. He looked at her with a sad, lost gaze, as though he could barely bring himself to think what was left unsaid, let alone say it.
“There’s no way she’s going to let you leave,” Takako finished for him. “Once you’re in, there will be no way out. She’ll know she just has to keep you long enough to wear you down.”
“I know that. Trust me when I say I’m no more enthused by the idea of being Pan’s prisoner than you are. But it’s a risk I’m willing to take to get the bow back. Eventually we were going to her anyway; nothing has changedthatsignificantly,” she tried (and failed) to reassure them.
“How will you get the bow back?” Unsurprisingly, it was Samson who asked. The only thing that could draw him from the trance of cleaning his workshop was the desire for his lost work.
“I’ll find a way. Trust me, Sam, I’ll get your creation back,” Jo swore to him, though it did little to quell the panic in his eyes.
“Let’s say, hypothetically—and it is a big hypothetical—” Eslar started, ever the voice of optimism. “That you manage to get in unscathed, you’re not forced in some way that we don’t yet know about to join with her, she hasn’t already destroyed the bow,andyou can locate it . . . then what?”
“Then I’ll find a way to let you all in.”
“How?”
Jo shook her head. She wanted to throw her hands up in the air. She wanted to shake the elf and all of his questions until he rattled. Yet her voice remained level, and Jo remained calm.
“I don’t know yet, but I know I won’t find those answers standing here. We have to return to Aristonia before Pan makes good on her promises for Luana.”
“For the record, I think this whole idea is insanity.” Wayne made his final stand.
“So noted in the record,” Jo replied, a tired smile on her lips.
“Well, at the very least, that means I get to say I told you so right before the whole world is literally plunged into oblivion.”
“Just once, you should try being optimistic,” Jo called after him as he left.
“We’ll figure out a plan.” Takako grabbed Jo’s shoulder and gave it an encouraging squeeze. "I’ll go pack my things.”
Then it was just Eslar, Jo, and Samson in the workroom, as it had been merely days before, the elvish guards long gone. Samson continued to titter about the state of his benches, otherwise oblivious to their presence. Jo started for the door, foolishly believing they were finished.
“Josephina.” Eslar stopped her, always one to have the last word.
“Using my full name,hmm? Well, this must be serious.” Jo folded her arms over her chest and turned.
“This plan is reckless.”
“And I’ve already established I understand that risk.”
“Do you? Because if you fail, we all lose.”
“If we do nothing, we all lose as she plunges the world into chaos. There is no way out of this that doesn’t end with Pan. It’s always been that way.” Jo stood her ground.
“I don’t fundamentally disagree with you.” He surprised her, because it certainly sounded like he disagreed with her.
“Then. . .”
“Make sure you’re doing this for the right reasons. When the time comes, you can’t be distracted.” He leveled his emerald eyes against hers.
“Snow, you mean.” Jo said outright. “You mean to say, ‘don’t be distracted by Snow.’”
“Are my concerns unfounded?”
Jo couldn’t suppress a laugh, though it sounded cold even to her ears. “Eslar, this isn’t a zero-sum game. Everyone else doesn’t lose because I’m worried about Snow. And my not worrying about Snow doesn’t mean everyone else will win. I’m about to walk into the lion’s den, alone on terms that are far from my own. I don’t think it’s exactly the wisest choice to try to decrease the number of reasons that I’m invested in making sure I get out of there alive. . . Or, at the very least, see this thing through to the end for his safetyandthe world’s.”
Eslar opened his mouth to speak, but a hand on his elbow stopped him. Neither of them had noticed Samson walking over to Eslar’s side.
